History of West Virginia old and new, Volume 2, Part 175

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Cassius McCarl Lemley was reared on the home farm in Wetzel County, and he was only twelve years of age when his father placed him in charge of the farm. In the meanwhile he profited fully by the advantages of the local schools, and at the age of fifteen years he taught in one of the rural schools of Wetzel County. He continued his service as a teacher during the winter terms until he was twenty years of age, and thus earned funds with which to defray the expenses of his higher education. In the spring of 1887 Mr. Lemley entered the University of West Virginia, and in this institu- tion he was graduated in 1891, with the degree of Civil Engineer. His was the first class to be graduated in the engineering department of this university, and though the class had nineteen members only three of the number proved eligible for graduation, the other two having been T. D. Lynch and F. G. Ross. During the winter of his junior year

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at the university Mr. Lemley taught school, and on holidays and in vacations he worked with engineering corps, to re- plenish his expense funds. He was graduated also with the Cadet Corps of the university, in which he ranked as senior first lieutenant and acting captain of Company A. On the day of his graduation Mr. Lemley went to Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, and took a position as rodman with an engin- eering corps on the Pittsburgh, Washington & Southern Railroad. In 1892 he was in charge of construction and rebuilding of the main line of the P. W. & B. Railroad between Baltimore and Philadelphia, and the P. & W. Railroad between Baltimore and Washington, besides being assistant in the construction of the Wall yards, now called Pitzcairn, in 1891-2. While still with the Pennsylvania Railroad system he was assistant engineer for the R. T. Marvin Engineering Company of Baltimore, in connection with engineering work in that city. From July 4, 1894, to July 18, 1895, he was acting chief engineer in charge of location and construction of the Washington & Great Falls Railroad. From that time until August, 1896, he was acting chief engineer for and laid out and built the Washington, Alexandria & Mount Vernon Railroad, for which he served as consulting engineer from April, 1898, to January, 1899. He was chief engineer in the building of the Myersville & Catoctin Railroad, which was the first electric freight line constructed in the United States. On August 11, 1899, Mr. Lemley was appointed assistant engineer for the B. & O. Railroad Company, and from that time until June, 1904, was in charge of location and con- struction of branch lines, and within this period he located and constructed the Hacker's Run branch, a coal-road exten- sion of the above mentioned line; the Point Pleasant, Buck- hannon & Tygarts Valley Railroad; the Burnersville branch (a coal line up to the Century mines); survey and location of the West Virginia Short Line Railroad. From July, 1904, to 1908, he was assistant engineer in charge of surveys and location of a low grade trunk line from the Ohio River to the Potomac, across the Alleghany Mountains. From 1908 to 1916 he was assistant engineer in charge of special work and investigation and reports on the resources of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad system and other lines tapping the same territory, and in this connection he had charge of the reports which had much to do with preventing the Wabash Railroad from making an entrance into West Virginia, besides which he made and reported an estimate of the coal tonnage adjacent to the Baltimore and Ohio system. From 1916 to 1918 he was geologist in charge of resources, coal, oil, gas, limestone and timber for this great system, and since 1918 he has been geological engineer in charge of the geological engineering work for the Baltimore and Ohio system.

Mr. Lemley has the distinction of being the first to be appointed a railroad geologist in the United States, and he has won high reputation in the various fields of engineering work that have engaged his attention, with the result that his services are frequently sought by large corporations, both as a geologist and engineer. The great value of his services in connection with the Baltimore and Ohio system is evidenced by the fact that everything pertaining to the development of the resources of that system has to be reviewed by him before being brought up for executive action.

During the Spanish-American war Mr. Lemley was con- sulting engineer to two large contracting companies engaged in war work at Washington and Philadelphia. In the year 1922 he is consulting engineer to two important independent coal corporations and two large oil corporations.

While he was a student in the university, 1887-91, Mr. Lemley was fortunate in studying and working under the direction of Col. T. Moore Jackson, the first to hold the chair of engineering in the University of West Virginia, and Dr. 1. C. White, the eminent geologist of Morgantown, in mak- ing the first geological survey of the Pennsylvania extension, from Greene and Washington counties, Pennsylvania, through West Virginia, and in locating what later became known as the Mannington and Wolf Summit oil fields, the largest in this state. Data obtained in this survey were later used by Dr. White in his first geological survey of West Virginia. Mr. Lemley was also with Col. T. Moore Jackson of Clarksburg, West Virginia, when he made the recognizance survey of the West Virginia Short Line Rail- oad from New Martinsville to Clarksburg, the lowest grade

between the Monongahela and Ohio Rivers. In 1899 made a report to the president of the Baltimore & Ohio R. road Company relative to the resources of that syst especially in the State of West Virginia, and as a basis future development. This report had much to do with leaving the employ of the Pennsylvania Railroad and enter that of the Baltimore & Ohio.

Mr. Lemley's professional work has brought him into I sonal contact with men of great prominence and influer including Messrs. John K. Cowan, Oscar G. Murray, 1 L. F. Loree, former presidents of the Baltimore & Ol E. H. Harriman, the late Henry G. Davis and the I Stephen B. Elkins, besides many others.

During his association with Mr. Harriman, when the la' was considering a coast to coast low grade line, he offere. solution of the Allegheny Mountain grade between the O aud Potomac rivers by presenting a plan for a water gris tunnel about twenty-eight miles in length through Allegheny Mountains, which was discussed also with Harriman by James M. Graham, chief engineer of the Ba more & Ohio, and which was so favorably received by I Harriman that he stated to Mr. Lemley that he would certain like to see this line built, and to work out the proposit as a future project in case it could not be constructed at : present time, as he considered it one of the greatest and m economical engineering feats in the United States.

Mr. Lemley is a member of the Society for the Advan ment of Science, served as president of the West Virgi University Engineering Club, and the Columbia Liters Society of the W. V. U .; is a member of the Phi Sigma Kap; the second fraternity chartered in the West Virginia U versity in 1891. He is a member of the Navy Leag Washington, D. C., of the Kiwanis Club of Morgantown, a the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.

Mr. Lemley's first wife was Mary Heilig Little, of Luth ville, Maryland, who died without issue. On June 7, 19, he married Miss Katherine Kalling Landwehr, who v born at Baltimore, Maryland, a daughter of Gerhart a: Mary (Kalling) Landwehr, both natives of that city and n deceased. Mrs. Lemley graduated from the University Maryland. She is popular in the social activities of Morga town and is an active member of the Present Day Club this city. Mr. and Mrs. Lemley have had two childro Katherine Dalrymple, born November 9, 1911, and Cass McCarl, Jr., born June 16, 1913, who died February 19, 19

BENJAMIN O. ROBINSON, M. D., has been established the practice of his profession in the City of Parkersburg sir the year 1904, and is consistently to be designated as one the representative physicians and surgeons of his nati county, the name of the Robinson family having been pro inently and influentially linked with civic and industr history in this county since the pioneer days.

Dr. Robinson was born in the Lubeck District of Wo County, West Virginia, on the 10th of March, 1879, and one of the four children-all living-of James W. and Ma garet Ann (Taylor) Robinson, both of whom likewise we born and reared in Wood County. James W. Robinson father, Benjamin Robinson, was the pioneer founder of t family in Wood County, where he obtained land and dev oped a productive farm and where he played well his part. connection with the earlier stages of civic and mater progress, both he and his wife having been honored pione citizens of the county at the time of their deaths. James Robinson gained his youthful education in the schools of t locality and period, and in connection with the basic indi tries of agriculture and stock growing he here achieved large measure of success. He was a man of civic loyal and progressiveness, commanded unqualified popular ester and was influential in community affairs of public ord He served as county assessor and later as land appraiser his native county, and he was distinctly an honored al representative citizen of Wood County at the time of } death in 1913, his widow being still a resident of her nati county, which is endeared to her by many hallowed mer ories and associations.

The invigorating discipline of the old home farm compasse the childhood and earlier youth of Dr. Robinson, and thi

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: made good use of the advantages of the public schools of a native county is indicated by the fact that at the age of venteen years he became a successful and popular teacher the school of his home district. In consonance with hia ell defined ambition and purpose he entered in 1900 the ollege of Physicians and Surgeons in the City of Baltimore, aryland, and in thia great institution he was graduated 1904, with the degree of Doctor of Medicine. While in iltimore he further fortified himself by the valuable clinical perience which he gained in one year of service as an in- rne in Mercy Hospital. Upon receiving his degree he turned to his native county and engaged in active general actice at Parkersburg, the county seat, in which city he is long controlled a large and representative practice. The octor has insistently kept in touch with advances made in edical and surgical science, and in evidence of this is the ct that on three different occasions he has taken effective st-graduate courses in the celebrated Post-Graduate School Medicine in New York City. Though his practice ia of neral order, Dr. Robinson gives special attention to surgery, which department of professional work he has gained high putation. He is actively identified with the American edical Association, the Southern Medical Association, the est Virginia State Medical Society and the Wood County edical Society. During the period of American participa- on in the World war Dr. Robinson served as a member of le Examining Board of Wood County, in connection with je calling of young men into the nation's service, and he La otherwise prominent in connection with local patriotic Itivities. In the time-honored Masonic fraternity the betor's maximum York Rite affiliation is with the Com- undery of Knights Templar in his home city, and in the ottish Rite he has received the thirty-second degree, besides nich he is a member of Nemesis Temple of the Mystic frine. He is a member also of Parkersburg Lodge of the nevolent and Protective Order of Elka and of the Elks and buntry Clubs of his home city.

September 30, 1916, recorded the marriage of Dr. Robin- and Miss Marjorie Cloy Behringer, of Defiance, Ohio, d she is a popular figure in the representative social activities Parkersburg.

JOHN DANA. A few miles above Parkersburg ia the City Marietta, the site of the first permanent settlement estab- hed in the Northwest Territory. The Marietta Colony, ganized in New England, extended its holdings up and down te river on the Ohio side for a number of miles, including t, little town of Belpre, just across the river from Parkers- rg. One of the original members of the Marietta Colony s Captain William Dana, and he chose his land at Belpre. le Dana farm has been in the possession of members of that mily for more than a hundred and thirty years, and natur- the interests of the Dana family have expanded to Erkersburg, where a number of the family have become pominent in business and civic affairs, including Mr. John [na, head of the Dana Company, wholesale grocers.

He is a great-grandson of Captain William Dana, who in in was a great-grandson of Richard Dana, a French E guenot who came from England to Cambridge, Massa- setts, in 1640 and was the ancestor of the widespread and dtinguished American family of this name. Captain Wil- in Dana was born at Cambridge, Massachusetts, and en- ied as a minute man in the Lexington alarm on the day >the battle of Lexington. He became a member of the Cio Company organized to promote settlement in the Arthwest Territory, and he reached Marietta in June, 1788. Berected and burned a kiln of brick that summer, and waa ło the first brick maker in the Northwest Territory. As led above, he chose his land allotment at Belpre, and in Svember, 1789, arrived with his family to occupy thia land. .Was covered with a heavy growth of timber, and his first & was clearing away the woods. In the spring of 1795 let out on his land the first apple orchard of grafted fruit, the last tree of the orchard stood until the spring of 15. The Danas for a century or more have been prominent the horticulture and nursery industry of this section of the )o Valley. Captain William Dana married in 1770 Mary Vicroft, of the noted New England family of that name. f their eleven children the first born after the family came

to Ohio was George, whose birth occurred at Belpre March 18, 1790. He spent his entire life on the old farm and in 1816 engaged in the nursery business, a business that greatly stimulated the commercial orchard industry of the Ohio Valley. George Dana died April 6, 1865. His wife was Deborah Ames Fisher.

Their son George, Jr., was born at the old homestead December 4, 1821, attended Marietta College and the Ohio University at Athena, and became associated with his father in the nursery business. Aa a business man he had numerous interests on the Virginia side of the river, and for many years he was a stockholder and director in the First National Bank of Parkersburg. His home was always the old farm at Belpre. He died June 21, 1892. In 1852 he married Lucy Byington. He and his bride made a trip to the Choctaw Nation in old Indian Territory. Her father, Rev. Cyrus Byington, Was a New England missionary who went among the Choctaw Indians as early as 1820, and continued hia work there for many years, having translated portions of the Bible into the Choctaw language.

John Dana, a son of George and Lucy (Byington) Dana, was born February 10, 1856, on the Dana farm at Belpre. He is a graduate of Marietta College, and carly in his business career came to Parkersburg. Since August 1, 1910, he has been president of the Dana Company, which is properly considered as the oldest wholesale grocery house at Parkersburg. The business was founded in 1862 by M. Woods & Company at the corner of First and Ann streets. Later the business was conducted by Frank Jenkins, who in 1868 sold out to Thompson & Jackson, comprising George W. Thompson, Henry C. Jackson and General John J. Jackson. This firm moved the location to the corner of Third and Ann streets, and Henry C. Jackson was the lead- ing spirit in the business until it was sold to the Dana Com- pany.

While his business is in Parkersburg, John Dana still maintaina his residence at Belpre. He has served as mayor of that town, and for many years aa a member of ita Board of Education. He is a republican and a member of the Con- gregational Church. February 10, 1886, he married Anna Lockwood. She was born at Paden Valley, now Paden City, in Westbrook County, West Virginia, daughter of Jacob E. and Olivia (Paden) Lockwood. She is a great- granddaughter of a West Virginia pioneer, Obadiah Paden, who prior to 1790 moved out of the Susquehanna Valley of Pennsylvania into the beautiful region named in hia honor as Paden Valley, Virginia, now West Virginia, and which remained in the family until about 1871. He became a farmer, was a Quaker, and never held office, and so far as known none of his family did. He was considered wealthy in those days, and accumulated much land and other prop- erty, all of which was willed to his heirs. His wife was Esther Dunn. One of their sona was James Paden, who married Elizabeth Elson, of a family near Meadville, Penn- sylvania. James Paden was a farmer in Paden Valley and died before the Civil war. He was one of the prosperous and influential citizens of his locality. There was a large family and the following children lived to have families: Olivia, who was married to Jacob E. Lockwood; David, who married Elizabeth Pennington; Elizabeth, who became Mrs. Ephraim Wells; Elson, who married Martha Hayman; and Obadiah, who married Miss Mary Ann Thompson. Jacob E. Lockwood and wife were the parents of five children: Anna Elizabeth, wife of John Dana; Ida M., deceased, who married Herman O. Witte; Charles Edward, who died in infancy; William Clinton and Blanche Paden Lockwood, both of Parkersburg, West Virginia.

Mr. and Mrs. John Dana became the parents of aix chil- dren. The oldest, George R. Dana, who was born June 20, 1887, was a graduate of Marietta College, grew up in his father's business, and was active manager of the Dana Com- pany when he died April 4, 1917. June 28, 1911, he mar- ried Grace Coe, and left one son, George William Dana. The second child of Mr. and Mrs. Dana is Miriam Isabel, who is the wife of Elliott Sargent Stone and lives at Belpre. Lockwood Nye, the third child, was a first class sergeant in the Quartermaster'a Department at Camp Sherman during the World war and is now a resident of Parkersburg and one of the officials of the Dana Company. He married Velma

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Edith Crow, daughter of Captain William and Louise (Somera) Crow, of Ripley, Jackson County, West Virginia. The fourth of the children is Roderick L., a resident of Parkersburg and manager of the old Amherst Company of Bolpre, Ohio. He married Mildred Martin and has two children: Martin Lawrence and Richard Bancroft. Jeanette Paden and Edward Byington are at home. Mr. and Mrs. Dana have also reared in their home Florence O. and Marshall E. Witte, who through their mother, Ida M. Lockwood Witte, are descendants of the old Paden stock.

JAMES E. MILLER, who is president of the J. E. Miller Company in the City of Parkersburg, is known and honored as one of the most progressive business men and loyal and public-spirited citizens of this vigorous Ohio river city. He was born in Washington County, Ohio, on a farm near the Ohio River and not far distant from the city in which he now maintains his home. The date of his nativity was August 25, 1874, and he is a son of Austin D. and Mary E. (Goddard) Miller, both of whom were born and reared in Jackson County, Ohio. David Miller, grandfather of the subject of this review, was born and reared in New Hamp- shire, a representative of a sterling Colonial family of New England, and he was a young man when he made his way to Ohio from New Hampshire and became a pioneer farmer in Jackson County. He was reared on his father's New England farm. Austin D. Miller served as a gallant soldier of the Union in the Civil war, as a member of an Ohio regi- ment of volunteer infantry, and after its close he continued for many years as one of the representative exponents of farm industry in Washington County, Ohio, where his death occurred in the year 1910 and where his widow still maintains her home. Of the five children three are living.

James E. Miller reverts with satisfaction to the fortifying experience that early became his in connection with the activities of the old home farm on which he was born and with the operations of which he continued his association until he had attained to his legal majority. In the meanwhile he profited by the advantages offered in the public schools of his native county, and later he completed a course in a busi- ness college at Parkersburg, a city with which he has been familiar since his childhood days. At the age of twenty-one years Mr. Miller made a radical change in environment and occupation by going to the city of Chicago, in which great western metropolis he was employed three years in a clerical capacity in a leading mail-order mercantile establishment. In 1898 he returned to the home farm, and after there remain- ing two years he went to Columbus, Ohio, where he con- tinued his residence seven years and where hia active asso- ciation with the furniture business gave him the experience that has proved of inestimable value in his individual activi- ties in connection with this branch of mercantile enterprise.

In 1907 Mr. Miller came to Parkersburg and engaged in the retail furniture business. Success attended the venture. and he had developed a well equipped establishment at the time when, in 1913, the property was destroyed in the great flood which devastated much of the city in that year. He then incorporated the Miller Furniture Company, which he sold in 1918. He forthwith made provisions for the re-establish- ing of his business, and incorporated as the J. E. Miller Com- pany. As president of this company he has built up one of the leading enterprises of the kind in the city. The large and well appointed furniture establishment of the J. E. Miller Company is at 404 Market Street, and is metropolitan in equipment and service, with a substantial patronage of representative order.

Mr. Miller is independent in politica, and he and his wife are active members of the Firat Methodist Episcopal Church of Parkeraburg. In the time-honored Maaonic fraternity he is a past master of Mount Olivet Lodge No. 3, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons; is at the time of this writing, in 1921, an officer of Jerusalem Chapter No. 3, Royal Arch Masons, and of Calvary Commandery, No. 3, Knights Templara; while in the Ancient Accepted Seottiah Rite he is past vener- able maater of Purnell Lodge of Perfection No. 2, and an officer in Odell S. Long Chapter No. 2, Rose Croix. He is also affiliated with Nemesis Temple, Ancient Arabic Order Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, and is a member of its fine patrol.

The year 1899 recorded the marriage of Mr. Miller and Misa

Linnie M."Dye, of Marietta, Ohio, and they have eight ch dren, namely: Edwin J., William T., Marie E., Carl and E., (twins), Roscoe, Margaret and David.

CHARLES A. KREPS is one of the able lawyers of We Virginia and has had a busy practice at Parkersburg sin 1903. He has also gained prominence in the republic. party of the state and is treasurer of the West Virginia B Association.

Mr. Kreps was born January 22, 1875, at Greenvil Mercer County, Pennsylvania, son of Adam T. and Ali (Hamblin) Kreps.

His great-great-grandfather, Michael Krebs, as the nar was apelled in several generationa, was a Revolutiona soldier, having been a corporal in Captain Baltzer Ort Company, Second Battalion, Lancaster County Militia, a a private in Captain David Krause'a Fourth Compar Second Battalion, Lancaster County Militia. He w a hatter by trade and lived at Lebanon, Pennsylvania. F son, Jacob Krebs, was born at Lebanon in 1772, marri Catherine Hetterick in 1794, also became a hatter, and abo 1798 established his home in Franklin County, Pennsylvan where he built up an extensive and prosperous industry. I son, Jacob F. Krepa, waa born in Franklin County in 18 and died in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, in 188 He acquired a good education, learned his father's trac and for some years traveled over the Ohio Valley as salesm for his father's product. In subsequent years his busin interests became widely extended, including merchandisiı the foundry industry and railroading. He was a member the Legislature after the war, held a number of local offic and was a leader in arousing his community to action at t beginning of the Civil war, and five of his aons were volt. teera. He was a local minister of the Methodist Chur Jacob F. Kreps married Eliza Turney in 1831. She was bc in 1811 and died in 1887.

The sixth of their ten children was Adam Turney Krej who was born in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, Deceml 31, 1842. He was for three and a half years in the Civil w being with the 15th Pennsylvania Cavalry, known as 1 Anderson Cavalry, 145th Regiment, Pennsylvania voluntee and for about a year and a half was a first lieutenant of 1 67th and 92nd Regiment, U. S. C. I. After the war he l came a manufacturer of engines and saw mills at Greenv in Mercer County, and subsequently removed to West V ginia, where he was in the timber and lumber business a oil and gas production. He married Alice Hamblin, who v born in Mercer County in 1849. Her father, John K. Han lin, was a son of Samuel and a grandson of John Hamblin, a was born at Washington, New York, in 1809, lived for seve years in Ohio, and in 1838 settled at Greenville, Pennsylvan. where he established the first foundry, and conducted tl business for nearly half a century.

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History of West Virginia old and new, Volume 2, Part 175

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